


Burning Eden

by CrumblingAsh



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Background Bucky/Steve, Clint Needs a Hug, Dancer Natasha Romanov, Depression, Ending not reflected in tags, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Natasha Feels, Past Child Death, Russian Roulette, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Steve Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Team Bonding, Thor Angst, Thor Feels, Tony Needs a Hug, War Veteran Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:02:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6611581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way the Russian Roulette Society worked was simple - you entered your name, answered a few stupid questions, gave your number, and waited for a response that grouped you with five other people. Then, you and those people would be given three weeks to follow a set of instructions that would lead you to the bullet that would go into the gun that would be waiting at an undisclosed location. At that point, well ... you sat down around a table and prayed that you would be the one the bullet chose.</p>
<p>Steve, Clint, Thor, Bruce, Natasha, Tony - they all wanted to be that person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Eden

* * *

 

 

A phone rang.

The neighborhood was quiet, the majority of its inhabitants enjoying the last few hours of sleep available before alarm clocks would start screaming In droves for the apparently universal eight’AM wakeup call.

The phone rang again, like the haunting wail of a star mourning the loss of the night.

When the alarm clocks screamed their piercing alarms, their respective owners would wake up to a day that was just like every other day of their lives – they would crawl from their beds, drink their coffee, clean and dress their bodies, eat their breakfasts, and go to work. Or to class. Or to wherever their daily routines had scheduled for them to go. And they would go through their work, or their class, and when whatever it was was over, they would come home, where they would spend hours “relaxing”, letting their televisions or their computers scrub away their routine stresses. They would eat their dinners, crawl back into their beds, and reset their alarm clocks to scream again the next morning. Eight’AM. Routine.

The phone rang again, and then cut off.

Steve used to have a routine.

With a quiet click, the answering machine picked up.

_“Hey, Steve.”_ Sam’s somber voice filled the room. _“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna call you out on being awake. Just wanted to let you know that I spoke with Fury over at SHIELD Security – he says he understands the situation, and that he’s not going to hold it against you. Told me to tell you, and I quote, ‘the motherfucking job is still open for him if he motherfucking wants it’. End quote.”_ The pause that followed offered an air of hope that the message would end, but then Sam spoke again. _“Look, man, I don’t care if you take the job or not, just … call me, alright? Let me know you’re still breathing and not decomposing on your bed. Please.”_

The answering machine did click off then, in the wake of a joke that wasn’t a joke.

On the bed, Steve blinked up at the ceiling. What little light filtered in through the drawn horizontal blinds danced on the white paint like the glint of stars that speckled across the vision of a dazed mind.

There was no sand in Brooklyn, no endless miles of vast, concealing desert. There were no tanks, no roaring Humvees – there was no gun strapped to his side, no combat boots on his feet to hide a knife. The burst of morning life in this city, the cheerful laughter of children awake too early, of cars with no malicious intent in the dull rumble of their worn-down engines – it had no similarities to the silence of the desert. The looming, sickening anticipation of the drop of five-thousand other shoes in the form of bullets and bombs … it didn’t exist here.

This was the American Dream. Waking up inside of a tiny little house with a tiny little yard, in the comfort the peace had been obtained and was guaranteed for the day if not for life. Somewhere, in there, there was supposed to be a family – a spouse and two kids and maybe a socially-acceptable purebred dog that stayed behind a white-picket fence and inside the frame of a simple life.

Steve twisted enough that he could bury his face into the flattened pillow beside his head, his dog tags ratting softly on their chain as he did. His own alarm clock was silent, his little house sparsely furnished and devoid of any other life but his own. The American-Goddamn-Dream.

On the table next to his bed, his cellphone vibrated mellowly.

He’d believed in that dream once, slept through enough days of life that he’d come to believe its illusioned existence to be the truth. He’d bought this house two months before his deployment had been due to be up. He’d considered adopting one of the puppies that had been staying around the camp – not purebred, but still damn cute and wiggly and warm. The ring he’d bought earlier in the year while on leave had been a consistent presence in his pocket for months, waiting for the right moment with the right partner. Guaranteed freedom? He’d given everything to make it that way. He knew all too well the _American Dream_.

Across the street, someone slammed their car door shut, and his phone buzzed again in reminder.

_(“he says he understands”)_

With a growl muted by the cotton of the pillow, he slapped for and grabbed the device. Sam was lax on waiting for calls back, but if Steve left a text unanswered for too long, the other man tended to break in through the back door and force his way through the house in search of answers.

Retracting the phone beneath the darkness of the pillow, Steve opened his eyes enough to peer at the screen.

The message was brief and to the point beneath words instead of a number.

For the first time in months, he felt his lips twitch with an attempt at a satisfied smile.

 

* * *

 

 

Clint was working on the theory that Manhattan traffic never actually stopped.

Physically, yeah, brakes were applied, lights burned red, and horns blared in rage of the interruption of a cruise, but those fleeting moments were only hiccups in the breathing of the flow of the city’s streets.

Inside of their hills, ants were quite content in their neverending lines, and even when the careless foot of an excited child smashed their hill and sent them scurrying, they still kept going; detoured, but not stopped.

Traffic in Manhattan didn’t always have to _be_ in Manhattan – the blood inside of a hand wasn’t always inside of a hand, after all, but that didn’t mean it no longer existed. It went to other places – elbow, shoulder, chest – but it came back eventually, always circulating. Unless it bled out from a cut, a hole – removed. Dead.

Across the street, a child shrieked with laughter, and Clint looked up just in time to see a little boy smash a malformed snowball at the ground before his mother, shaking her head with a smile, scooped him up to carry him away.

_‘Focus, Barton,’_ he chided himself. Giving his own head a shake, he glanced at the building of the shadow he stood under. _SHIELD SECURITY_ , lettered neatly in steel against the smooth cement of its walls. Also etched boldly into the glass of the door he stood in front of, framing a larger image of what was probably an eagle with its head turned sideways – not watchful, but warning. It didn’t need to be on the lookout; nothing was going to get past it that didn’t belong there.

In the reflection of the glass, he could see the people of the streets walking behind him – they looked like they were walking behind the eagle, too.

_‘You look like an idiot just standing out here. You know they can see you.’_ Hell, _he_ could see himself, still in yesterday’s clothes, hair tousled, shoes in danger of becoming untied. He’d brushed his teeth, switched out socks – there was nothing left in the evidence of alcohol-induced vomiting from last night, at least. If he could avoid smiling, they wouldn’t even see how yellow his teeth had gotten.

_‘You can do this,’_ her voice said.

The burst of warm air in contrast to the bitter cold outside when he opened the door nearly knocked the breath from him.

The quiet professionalism of the office he’d stepped into _did_.

The front room, more of the steel and sleek grey from the outside, was empty save for a strategically placed group of black leather chairs, one glass coffee table devoid of magazines, and a large, gleaming black front desk. The woman sitting behind it, dark hair drawn tightly into a bun to keep it from her sharp face, didn’t even spare him a glance, her fingers flying over the display of keyboard keys.

“Barton?” She barked suddenly, and only his still dully-throbbing hangover kept him from jumping.

“Uh, yeah,” he responded, and then shook his head again. Nope, nada, no. “I mean, yes ma’am,” he corrected quickly. “I’m here for an interview with Phil Coulson? Uh, I have my appointment card.” He dug into his back pocket, where it had been waiting for five days, but the woman was already scowling.

“Save it,” she commented, tapping on another key before the display board disappeared. “If you know his first name, you’re supposed to be here. Also, I’m not the secretary. I don’t check appointment cards.” She stood then, snatching three slips of paper that he hadn’t noticed printing silently beside her, and turned away. “Stay here. Coulson should come down for you eventually.”

“Yes ma’am,” he repeated, but it was to the echoes of her heels down the corridor, away from him.

And he was alone with the empty chairs and the empty table and the empty room. He could hear himself breathe, the ants of the city muted by the door.

_‘You can do this.’_

Behind the etched eagle, he could see another child, a little girl with brown hair, dragging her mother behind her as she stomped her purple boots heavily and happily into each tiny gathering of snow.

_‘Do they have frogs in the city, Daddy?’_

Frantically, his eyes darted back toward the hallway the woman had disappeared down; but there was no mysterious Coulson approaching.

He could open the door, just a bit. It was cold outside and warm – stuffy, really – in here; he needed air, that was fine. And if it let in noise from the traffic, that could mute out the noise from his head, well – no. No ‘well’, he just needed some air. He was allowed to get some damn fresh air-

In his back pocket, alongside his appointment card, his phone buzzed.

 

* * *

 

 

“I don’t like this.”

The lights inside of the cabin were off; the heater had yet to be given a chance to produce anything more than dust; the numbers on the microwave flashed a never-ending _12:00_ in bright, toxic green.

Thor stretched out on the wooden floor, rug pushed aside, and kept as close to the patio’s glass door, cracked open, as he could get without actually leaving the cabin. “This was your idea,” he reminded lightly into the cellphone tucked against his ear. His shirt was bunched beneath his head like a pillow, his bare chest covered in prickling goosebumps from the outside’s bitter winter cold. He had never been a fan of the snow, never appreciated the times when the temperature would drop below the comfort of seventy-five Fahrenheit, but now he ached for the chill to seep through his skin and invade his bones. To just freeze him, just for a little while, until it hurt to move his fingers and bend his knees.

“When I said to take a vacation, it was implied that I meant for you to take someone with you.” Sif’s voice was almost waspish on his side of the line; Thor would have flinched at the sound of it, well acquainted with the pain her fury could bring, but he could not quite dredge up enough energy to fully care that she was displeased with him. “What I did _not_ mean was for you to wander off to some foreign country to lock yourself up in a cabin for a month in the middle of winter!”

“You did say I needed some time alone with my thoughts,” he mused aloud, eyes scanning the high ceiling of polished wood above him. “Mother rented the cabin herself. She thought the travel would be a fine idea for me.”

His mother’s smile had been pleasant as she had seen him out the front door of their home; she had even waved as the car had driven him away. For the few moments it had taken her to disappear from sight, it had almost felt normal, as if he really had been just off on another trip with his friends. Just taking a break from the monotony of the business, grabbing a chance to free his mind from the box of suits and numbers and fake, polite smiles in the face of greed.

“Thor,” Sif growled.

Except he had left every single one of his friends behind.

“I truly am fine,” he voiced quietly, the words an automatic reassurance at the knowledge of her unease. The familiar weight of guilt slipped down to press against the top of his stomach.

“You would not tell me even if you were not.”

A shiver, subtle and long, traveled along the length of his right side, stretching toward but not quite reaching the ribs in his chest. The skin along his side had already gone numb to the chill, yet it still pebbled and twitched in response to the snow’s breath, already infected. His toes were beginning to ache out their protest, but the tops of his feet merely tingled as if considering what problem there could possibly be. The tip of his nose was stinging in its frozen state, but his face felt warm, almost overheated.

“What could you possibly even do in New York?” Sif demanded, like the idea was as foreign to her as the country he was in.

The swirling mix of the sensations in his body was confusing.

“Sightseeing,” he answered. He had been told as much by his mother. “There are many iconic buildings in New York that I have never seen in person. There are also museums of art, and I am very curious about Broadway-.”

“And you will do all of this for a month?” _These are not your usual interests_ wasn’t said, but he heard it clearly in her silence. It wasn’t incorrect. He’d made no mention of bars or clubs, hadn’t joked at the prospect of obtaining pleasing company for the duration of his stay – Sif would have checked his logs, would have noticed that he hadn’t rented a flashy sports car to roam the streets of the city with. No doubt she was suspicious about how far the cabin was from the infamous night life. “In the winter?”

“Time alone with my thoughts,” he reiterated, and couldn’t force the roll of humor into his voice at that one. It was as if repeating the idea dragged forward the anchor it had grown up from. “And it would do some good for my mother as well. The silence.”

_“Thor.”_

Outside the open door, hopping around on the layer of snow as if its wings had been meaninglessly added, a red bird chirped curiously. Its head cocked back at him, golden eyes sharp and intent underneath its black mask markings, and it hopped a little closer. Was it the opened door that intrigued it, or himself on the other side? It certainly didn’t seem fearful, approaching as it was. Broken off from the chaotic existence of the city as this place was, maybe it had never been given a reason to fear.

It trilled again, the same sound, looking odd with its wings folding unused along its back.

“Thor,” Sif said again, and this time, her voice was kinder. The gentle quality, nearly unnatural from her, made him absently cringe. “Silence is the last thing anyone in this place needs.”

It stabbed his chest so bluntly that he sucked in a breath harsh enough to make the bird startle backward; the sound of it crackled through the phone’s speaker and back into his ear, recycled.

“ _That is not what I meant_ ,” his friend protested quickly, but it was too late to stop the flood of nothingness that seeped from the hole of the emotional wound in his chest, chasing the cold away in a cruel relief.

The morning sun reflected vibrantly across as much of the thin snow as it could – staring at it was almost as painful as staring at the sun itself.

“Thor-.”

“I need to finish unpacking,” he excused softly, still looking outside. Against the red of the bird’s feathers, he could see flecks of dancing white spiraling downward – it was snowing again.

“…could you not have waited until spring for this?” Sif murmured slowly into his ear, but the rhetorical edge to the question was a small blade beneath the words. She didn’t expect an answer. Or rather, not one that would satisfy her.

Thor blinked, the flakes losing their sharpness to become nothing more than fuzzy whiteness to his eyes. Meaningless.

He sighed, exhaustion in his lungs, and returned his gaze toward the ceiling. “I will call you,” he promised, reluctance sour at the back of his throat. “But I need this time, Sif. Trust me – I am where I need to be.”

There was just the smallest breath of silence in the phone. There was never, and had never been, more than that between them.

“We’re only a flight away, the four of us,” Sif finally said, a sigh of her own chasing her words. And then she promptly hung up.

Goodbyes were not something done between them, either.

Thor left the phone where it was, studying the wood of the ceiling and the way it glimmered from the light the windows let in. What was the point in having it so high above where the people were living? Untouchable, more like an inescapable sky than the cap of a structure he could simply walk out of.

A short gust of wind pushed the cold of the snow inside of the cabin to nip at the fragile surface of his eyes.

Against his head, his phone chimed pleasantly with the alert of a text.

 

* * *

 

 

It was the muffled warmth of the sun against the black material of his coat that woke Bruce up.

The buckle of the seatbelt gnawed into the dip of his waist, punishing the skin and forcing a groan from his exhausted throat as he shifted to pull himself away from it. The backseat moaned sorrowfully in time with him, springs creaking beneath it in either spite or glee, the noise bouncing between the glass of the windows before scraping along his ears with delight. He groaned again as his head throbbed in return of the noise, thoughts swimming between the approach of consciousness and the overwhelming desire to let it go and grab for more sleep.

The quiet huff of a warm breath against his face, however, had his eyes squinting open to meet wide ones focused intently on him.

“Shit. I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely. The sound of a tail thumping against the plastic of the door made his face split into an immediate smile that pulled at ill-used muscles. “Time already?”

The dog nosed forward until his chin rested on the seat beside Bruce’s head in looming threat of kisses – he couldn’t help but snort, his gaze drifting around the vehicle. The windows were still frosted over, but the density of the ice had already been significantly eaten away by the morning sun, aided by the space from where he’d left them cracked open for the night. It wasn’t cloudy outside, which meant, for at least right now, that it wasn’t going to snow again. Hopefully, until he could get to the church and snag a shower and a chance to dry his hair, that would hold out and keep away the damp bite of the cold in the air.

A large tongue smeared saliva across his face.

“That was disgusting. Thank you,” he said dryly, returning his attention to the dog. The thumps of the tail against the door got louder, quicker, and if Bruce had the energy he would have laughed at the misplaced enthusiasm the canine exhibited just at the sound of his voice. As it was, the tired throbs of his body increased at the thought of the action, and instead he plopped his hand on the animal’s head, giving a slow rub that got him another lick for his troubles. “Don’t suppose going back to sleep is a good idea?”

The dog whined softly in what could have been seen as in consideration of the headache seeping into his skull, but was probably a habit born from fear of being too loud.

Bruce rubbed his head again, comforting, and gave another smile. “Wanna go out?” He tried.

The dog immediately sat up, attention grabbed.

Another moment for a laugh that his body didn’t take.

Bruce sat up slower, wincing as his bones shifted and cracked, muscles pulling and crying out from knots and kinks born from sleeping on a bench seat. Stars sparked in tired protest behind his eyes, and a sharp, sleep-desperate pain stabbed at the base of his skull. Threatening.

Unheeding, Bruce quietly pulled the door open, giving a little wave into the chill to indicate permission.

Carefully, tail still wagging, the dog jumped out, immediately setting off to do his business, shuffling through the remaining clumps of snow that still littered the many shaded areas of the junkyard.

Bruce’s stomach rumbled suddenly as the cold air began to sweep beneath his clothing, the painful clench of it familiar enough that he could breathe through its sickening spasm. He felt his eyes closing again against the outside, the ache in his head dying down the longer his lids stayed closed, and with a sigh, he rested it against the seat.

_‘I’m so tired of being tired.’_

The thought came soft and unbidden and unwanted.

His stomach clenched again, tighter still. Bruce let out a slow, steady, practiced breath.

The sound of the dog’s feet along the snow approached, quick and eager; his eyes burned with it, and he took in a matching slow breath before he opened them again.

“Good boy,” he murmured; the tail went wild, and the dog bounced up, resting his heavy paws on Bruce’s knees. “You’re such a good boy, watching over me, keeping me safe. Keeping everyone away. You’re such a _good_ guard dog.”

He really wasn’t. Mistreatment and neglect had made him too skittish, too quiet, too eager to receive kindness from a stranger who wasn’t even his owner. A blessing for Bruce, when he’d stumbled across the too-large junkyard that night two weeks ago, but- _“good boy,”_ he repeated, firmer than before as his fingers scratched at the dog’s ears. He was given another loving lick.

Somewhere in the distance, a car horn shouted in annoyance, and another answered twice as loud. The noise cracked over the scraps of metal and broken vehicles scattered dead all around him. The dog’s ears instantly went back, neck tensing in discontent of the sound, and Bruce slumped.

The world was waking up.

Gently pushing the dog away, Bruce slowly stood.

His body was heavy.

So fucking heavy.

The dog whined.

“I wish there was someone I could call to get you out of here.” Around a pile of metallic junk atop a rusted old sedan, he could make out the backdoor of Jack Rollins’ house. “But they wouldn’t give you much of a chance, being what you are. At least he feeds you well.” He dropped his eyes back to the dog. “I’d kill him if he didn’t.”

The dog huffed again, his tail going slower – two weeks of this routine had taught him what was going to happen.

Jack Rollins would be up soon. It’d be bad for both of them if Bruce were caught here.

With another sigh, Bruce reached back, grabbing the van’s door handle as tightly as he could, and pulled it closed as the dog, tail stopping, sat at his feet.

They both tilted their heads in confusion as the phone in Bruce’s coat pocket, never used, vibrated.

 

* * *

 

 

The city was made of noise that woke when the sun broke over the Atlantic horizon, and only muted when the sky went dark enough for the man-made lights to have a reason to shine.

Natasha always walked through it, unguarded, her hands by her side and smile at the ready. In a sea of morning-weary people too rushed to give a damn, she was bright – warm – approachable. Every step was welcoming, every gaze inviting, every word from her mouth enthusiastic and interesting. She caught curious attention and kept it, a breath of fresh air in the angry indifference that made up the veins of Manhattan.

She was entirely calculated.

It was easier, gaining attention in the winter than when warmer weather called for less clothing. The people in the summer were hot, hungry for an entirely different sort of attention – they weren’t as shy, respect falling away under the wave of their want. But in the winter, people walked outside in a state of shock, as if believing that the cold was an empty world of sorrow that they had been dumped into and lost within. Whether it was their first winter or their fiftieth, it was always the same. And they were all looking for an anchor, or a guiding light that would lead them back to where they’d felt more secure before the snow and its freeze had come.

With one smile, Natasha became that light.

“- I didn’t even know how to get a taxi!” The man was telling her, his face twisted up in a sheepish expression. His hands were both clasped tightly around the sides of his briefcase, filled with the usual terror that it might be taken away from him in a place like this. “It doesn’t seem to work quite the same way it does on tv. I have more than enough to get a rental car, but I’m not going to be staying in the city long enough to justify doing that. It’s all a mess.” He laughed weakly.

“You could try Uber,” Natasha suggested helpfully, mouth twitching as the man’s expression became even more embarrassed. She had moved her bag when she’d seen him step into the car and look at the pole apprehensively, opening the spot next to her for him. He’d been grateful, amused that she had recognized so easily that he wasn’t from the city.

“I don’t even know what that is,” he confessed, and Natasha offered him a wide grin, her laughter light and kind.

“Do you have a phone?” she asked.

He didn’t look at her chest as he leaned over the device, though her coat had been unzipped enough to tease a glimpse, his attention rapt as he watched her flip through his app store.

“They’re like a taxi company, only their drivers are independent contractors who use their own vehicles. You can use this app to request a ride,” she explained carefully, still smiling. “The app itself is completely free. Would you like to install it?”

“Please,” he agreed eagerly, expression morphing into something like childish relief as he smiled back. Natasha ducked her head.

Her leg subtly nudged her bag a little closer to the edge of the seat.

“This will work alright for you since you’re only in the city for a short time,” she allowed, pressing the ‘Get’ button. “But if you’re going to make trips like this frequently, it might be best to check into a few companies and get yourself a driver on retainer – here you go.”

“A driver on retainer,” he repeated, chuckling in a manner that wasn’t mocking toward her, but rather self-deprecating toward himself as he took the phone back. “It’d be nice not to have to worry about traveling. Maybe if this meeting goes well – _really_ well.”

Natasha didn’t give him a comforting touch – too forward, too invasive – but she did lean forward, friendly, and softened her smile into something understanding. “I think you’re going to do really well,” she voiced quietly. “Enthusiasm in nine-tenths of winning anyone over, and I can tell you’ve got that in spades. You’ll blow them away with whatever you’re going to show them.” She tipped her head toward the briefcase pointedly. “Even if it’s a schematic for a new can-opener.”

His dark eyes sparked in sudden interest, and he leaned back over his briefcase quickly. “Oh, it’s definitely more than a can-opener. It’s -.” He paused abruptly, then, teeth popping out to scrape along his bottom lip as doubt flashed along his face.

Natasha jumped her knee a little, brushing her bag forward again.

“World changing?” she supplied, keeping the dryness from her voice. “Revolutionary?”

But his head shook. “No, it’s … it’s something that will help make people’s lives better.” And this time, as his gaze dropped back to his case, it really was a confession. “Something to help keep them safe.”

Natasha stopped bouncing her leg.

“I thought, what better place to take it than Stark Industries, now that they’ve adopting some new directions.” His fingers flexed around the hard leather. “Even if they don’t take my idea, or me, maybe someone at the meeting will be inspired by it, maybe make it into something better. Or maybe keep it almost identical.” He sighed, laughing softly at himself again. “I really don’t care. As long as it’s used.”

Damn it.

Some people didn’t cover their faces in the winter, though it left them exposed and their lungs drinking vapors of ice with every needed, easy breath. She was nothing more than a mirror of them – an image walking free of the reflexive glass, hoping no one would notice the reversed image of her breaths.

“I know, I know. It sounds stupid.” The train was slowing, the force of it fading away from her body, and his smile had dimmed. “Why should I want to just give something like this away-.”

“It’s not stupid.” Her smile hurt, and as people began flashing through the windows, featureless and growing, she dropped it. “I think we’re getting to your stop now, though. If you’re really doing this, that is.”

The man perked up immediately, eyes going wide as the faces on the outside grew sharper, their bodies all twitching in obvious impatience. “Oh.” He stood, almost knocking her bag over all on his own. He turned back toward her, eyes wider still. _“Oh.”_

Fuck.

“S.I. is three blocks to your left when you get outside.” She pushed her bag back into place, again blocking the seat beside her. “Don’t use Uber for that short of a distance.”

The train drew to a stop.

_“Thank you,”_ he said earnestly as the doors hissed open. “Really.”

She shook her head, waving him away. “Better hurry if you don’t want to get stuck in here.”

He swung around again. _“Oh.”_

She watched as he pushed his way through the throng of people flooding inside, still clutching his briefcase up against his chest, twisting toward her a final time once he was on the ground. “My name’s Calvin!” he called out as the doors hissed to close.

They sealed shut before she could have had a chance to respond, and the floor quivered and creaked as the train began to move again.

Calvin disappeared from her sight, falling away, and Natasha sat back, no richer than she had been when she had boarded.

The walls of the tunnel flashed by the windows as if there were no windows at all, like the dips along the sides of the car were only there to provide an illusion to slice through any approaching claustrophobia long enough to ensure a trouble free trip. No one looked towards her, caught up in their own conversations and the redundancy of their predetermined days, fingers locked around poles and handles like they wanted to stay exactly where they were.

From the space between the cup of her bra and the beginning swell of her breast, Natasha’s phone hummed a rhythm of quiet chimes. Just one set. A text message.

She slipped it out.

There were five notifications on the screen – three missed calls, one voicemail alert that sat alone as coldly as the pit in her stomach at the sight of it, and a text that made her choke over a breath that was stuck in her throat. Blank in preview, sent from _Restricted Number._

Finally.

 

* * *

 

 

Beneath his fingers, bleeding silver graphite and flat, useless numbers, the brittle skeleton of the idea broke apart before he could formulate a spine to support it. Its life drained away under the witness of his eyes, its existence completely empty by the time he finally stilled the movements of the drafting pencil. The blank space of paper below the schematic’s now-carcass, twice its size, fell with it, left behind to be a deathbed instead of a filling womb – so much hollow white space, bright and nauseating under the glare of the artificial lights above, like snow on an obnoxiously sunny day.

Tony didn’t crinkle the dead paper up into a ball or crumpled trash. He just slid it across the table, the sound of its glide muted by the deeply thrumming bass of AC/DC gone indistinguishable to his ears after its seventh round through the playlist, and let it go over the edge to float a slow, inevitable fall to the floor. The glass top of the table was all that was left to see, no papers near to take its place.

He stared at his reflection, a heavy weight in his chest that felt like it wanted nothing more than to pull his head down, the pencil waiting uselessly between his fingers.

_‘Genius,’_ he thought to himself, irony spinning with a fat, nameless feeling. _‘Prodigy. Icon of the Technological Age. The Da Vinci of His Time.’_

He couldn’t even get the damned concept down right. Without the concept, there was no design. Without the design, there was no prototype. Without the prototype, _there was_ _no fucking point._

“God _dammit!_ ” Tony jerked on his stool, throwing the pencil against the wall with such force that its impact rang out like the crack of a bullet above the wail of the pounding music, sharp and misplaced. He closed his eyes with a groan, and ignored the old familiar nickname that he could place with the rhythm the beats of his heart fell into. Ignore, ignore, _ignore-_

“Excuse me, sir.” JARVIS’ voice, though soft (the considerate bastard), was easily heard over the singing strings of the song’s guitar. “But you have received a new message that I believe you may wish to view.”

Tony snorted, fingertips blindly skimming over the top of the empty table, grateful for the interruption. “I already sent Obi the approval for the missile designs, J, so I really can’t think of anything he would need from me until after the first of the year-.”

“The message is not from Mr. Stane nor any other Stark Industries personnel, sir,” the AI cut off patiently, and the table began to hum against his hands. For just moment, he hoped- “It has gone to your private number – here are its contents.”

The glass grew warm, alive with electricity beneath the slump of his shoulders. Tony opened his eyes.

 

 

**Restricted Number (8:26 AM)**

_> >> Approval granted_

_Reservation for 6 tomorrow @ Palo’s Pizzeria Etc. under ‘Banner’_

_11:30am_

_-S._

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://ashnapalm.tumblr.com/)


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